Write a commentFeile na nGael An Dún takes place this weekend 20th and 21st of April in the wonderful setting of Castlewellan. Féile starts Friday evening when the finals of the Primary Schools competitions in hurling and camogie take place and those finals are sandwiched between the individual skills competitions.
The evening opens with the Primary Schools skills and closes with the always exciting U-14 club skillstar competition in both hurling and camogie – the winners of which goes forward to represent Down in the All-Ireland Finals in Dublin. In all approximately 400 children will take part (including preliminaries) in Féile 2012
Saturday begins with the Féile Parade when all the representatives complete with full kit and club banner process from St Malachy’s High School through the town to the pitch. At that stage the Camogie teams return to St. Malachy’s to play their competitions to the cup final stage. While Division 2 Hurling teams go to the Bann Rd, complex to play their competitions to the final stage.
Everyone returns to the main pitch then for the 3 finals, Division 2 Hurling, Camogie and lastly the Division 1 Hurling final. The Handball competition between Clonduff, Downpatrick and Saval takes place on the Friday evening in Saval, but the handballers are invited to the Parade on Saturday morning.
Féile How it Began
Féile na nGael was the brain child of a Tipperary man Moneygall school teacher Seamus Ryan. After serving his three years as Uachtarán Cumann Lúthchleas Gael Seamus took over as chairman of the Tipperary County Board and he was anxious to develop something that would strengthen club hurling throughout the whole country and the vehicle for that development would be the youth.
County secretary Tommy Barrett and himself hatched an ambitious plan to bring the club champions of the 31 other counties to Tipperary and the host county would provide the other 33 teams from their own clubs to bring the total to 64 teams. Thus on Friday 16th July 1971 teams from Carndonagh in Donegal to Blackrock in Cork; from Eoghan Rua in Dublin to Loughrea in Galway descended on Tipperary and amid great enthusiasm and excitement Féile na nGael was born.
Since then it has expanded to embrace Camogie and Handball and includes teams from Birmingham, London and Warickshire to become the Greatest Festival of youth in Ireland and has seen the development of some of the greatest exponents in all three games. In 1993 a young lad travelled from Cavan to Galway to take part in Féile, just a few years later that young man became the world handball champion and today Paul Brady is acknowledged as the greatest handballer of all time. From such little acorns grow.
Still on handball acknowledging that all clubs will not be able to provide facilities such as those in Saval the association in an effort to give more of our youth the chance to experience this great game, have turned back to their roots and have focussed attention on “one wall handball”. With that in mind we have erected an indoor portable structure in the hall in Castlewellan so that competitors and indeed spectators can “have a go” at handball. We encourage as many as possible to sample this great game. Who knows we could well unearth a Co. Down Paul Brady!
From it’s inception Down has been involved in Féile. In the early years Seamus Mc Gratten was the man in charge. In 1984 Bernard Mc Gratten took control and acted as Féile chairman for the next incredible 27 years! Co. Down and it’s youth owe him a tremendous depth of gratitude! 2010 was a monumental year for Down when Liatrom’s Pearse Óg Mc Crickard was crowned All-Ireland Hurling Skillstar champion with the highest points total ever recorded!
This year the All-Ireland finals take place in Dublin and so on July 5th 6th and 7th the Down winners in hurling, camogie and handball plus the skillstar winners will make their way to the Capital to represent our proud county. In advance of the competition we congratulate our champions and they carry our best wishes to Dublin.
Above all we earnestly hope that every child who takes part in Féile 2012 enjoys the experience because enjoyment is the very essence of Féile.
One other innovation this year is the use of twitter.
The 3 venues will be inter linked so that everyone will know what is going on and how their teams are doing whether you are present or not! So why not come along and make this a very special occasion for the children. Twitter can be accessed through the Down Website, just click on the twitter box on the main page to follow or login in to twitter using your phone to keep track of how your team is progressing through the day.
Access Official Down GAA Twitter Page
